There is a serious gender sensitivity problem with the newly selected choices of cabinet ministers of Democratic Progressive Party’s and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s new government.

The choices of cabinet ministers-in-waiting chosen by president-in-waiting of the Executive Yuan Lin Chuan are now complete. They consist of 40 cabinet officials, and only 4 of them are females, or a meager 10%.

This is even less than the 14.3% who are females in the current interim cabinet of interim president of the Executive Yuan Chang Shan-cheng, half of the 20.8% who are females in the incumbent administration of president Ma Ying-jeou, and 2 percentage points less than the 22% who were females in the previous Democratic Progressive Party’s 8-year administration of president Chen Shui-bian.

On May 3, 2016, over a dozen women’s organizations staged a protest in front of the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party and performed an act of “toppling the table” that symbolized their anger at the new cabinet choices as well as Tsai Ing-wen’s renege of her 2012 promise to fill the cabinet with no less than 1/3 females.

The protesting women’s organizations say that the president-in-waiting of the Executive Yuan Lin Chuan needs “gender sensitivity”. They also express profound disappointment with the new cabinet choices and with Tsai Ing-wen.

Executive officer Chi Hui-rong of the Li Hsing Foundation, a major women’s organization, says that Tsai Ing-wen’s election to become Taiwan’s first female president does not mean that there will be fairness for women to participate in politics.

The Democratic Progressive Party is being accused of holding on to male chauvinism.

Tsai Ing-wen responded to the women’s protests saying that she has heard their complaints.

However, other acts of rejection of Tsai Ing-wen have been taken by five students and by the mother of a student who died during the anti-textbook protests in 2015. They have been invited to attend Tsai Ing-wen’s inaugural banquet but they have refused to attend despite the fact that Tsai Ing-wen personally pledged “solidarity” with them and posed for a photo with them at the protest site in 2015.

Self-proclaimed designated delegate to Japan, Hsieh Chang-ting, told the Japanese press, but not the Taiwanese press, that “subjectively, we want peace, but it is very difficult to get hold of.”

[Master Chen Says] This immediately places doubts about the new DPP government’s ability to handle and manage cross Strait relations with the Chinese Communist regime. It shows an inner lack of confidence of the new DPP and the Tsai Ing-wen government.

[Master Chen Says] So, even before president-elect Tsai Ing-wen is inaugurated on May 20, 2016, Taiwan’s women’s organizations are now protesting the first female president-to-be Tsai Ing-wen.

The protest and the statement by Hsieh Chang-ting hinting that “subjectively, we want peace, but it is very difficult to get hold of”, are expressions that indicate serious doubt about the abilities of the new government of Tsai Ing-wen to handle even the “status quo”.